OK, it occurred to me that there's a slight chance that most people reading this may already spend a good deal of time staring at random things they find on the internet. Perhaps they don't actually need more things on screens to look at, but might even be better off being encouraged to walk away from the device altogether and go enjoy their families?

But, who am I to judge? I'm staring at a screen too.

Besides, since I keep coming across so many interesting things myself, I thought it would be nice to share. Since this stuff is actually really cool and inspirational, it's not like mindlessly looking at cat pictures. And by inspirational, I don't mean like those ridiculously complex and perfect things everyone Pins but no one ever does. I mean there's educational value here, and I'm all about supporting life long learning.

In fact, some of my favorite findings this week fall into the FunSchooling category. Enough of my rambling...Grab a cuppa something good, sit down and enjoy!

This totally reminds me of the many hours my kids and I spent photographing their toys in various scenarios and set ups, and writing stories to go along with them when they were younger. We even have a couple of hard bound books we made from those adventures.

It also reminds me of a friend who was very concerned and surprised when they realized how much of our "homeschooling" time was spent in this way. "Ummm, you did WHAT all day?" Imagine if we had spent a whole year on it! Bwahahaha! (.......)

I realize that I've been writing a lot about philosophical life lessons lately, which is fine, except I'm neglecting some really important things that I want to share~ like the day to day fun that's found in a FunSchooling lifestyle.

While life seems to be full of all of these deep things to ponder and challenges to figure out, it's also full of adventures big and small, and really good times with the people I love most~ my crazy offspring.

Last month, we had a super fun adventure to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their generous homeschool days. I had to reserve the tickets months in advance, but they were Free~ Yes, FREE! For the 2 adults and 6 kids that were in our friendly adventure party, this would have totaled close to $300 just to get in the door. (In other words, we probably wouldn't have gone otherwise. Thank you Aquarium~ you guys ROCK!)

After having made reservations so far in advance, and getting all excited, life threw a few bumps in my plans. An unpleasant appointment and a funeral came up, and it turned out they would both land on the day we would be returning. Oh~ and we'd be getting in at 1 AM, AFTER spending a full day at the aquarium AND driving over 5 hours.

I actually considered cancelling the trip due to overwhelm, and the realization that I would be heading straight into really hard stuff already exhausted and on no sleep.

Then, I got a grip and realized that neither the appointment nor the funeral would be any happier for me if I skipped out on my fun. Those unpleasant things would still be unpleasant, and I'd rather have the good times than sleep. (.......)

Once upon a time there was a naive little girl who fell for a boy. Looking back, the girl has no idea what on earth she saw in this particular boy~ perhaps it was his fast car, or his awesome rock band t-shirts. Maybe she just thought he was cute, and her silly young heart wanted it to be something more than it was.

The draw to this boy certainly wasn't based on shared conversation or charm or friendship. Whatever it was, it was nothing of substance, but for some reason, she wanted it to be.

Well, the boy broke her heart, and he did it the week before Christmas. After she wailed miserably about the ordeal to her BFF, they eventually laughed that the boy was probably just wanting to get out of buying her a present.

Sure enough, a few days after the holiday, he called her, full of weak attempts at romantic compliments. In hindsight, it was probably not very convincing really, but the silly girl thought she should be looking for love, and so she fell for it. By New Years Eve, he had done some stupid thing, she isn't even sure what anymore, but she spent that night too gabbing with her BFF about the pain of love.

By Valentines Day, she knew the whole thing was a sham, but being young and unsure of herself, she still wanted desperately to feel loved. The hearts and chocolates and cards in every store just reminded her that she wasn't, or at least she didn't think so at the time.

And so, she wrote her BFF a note, because that's what school girls did in the days before texting. She wrote on paper of how glad she was that VD was over, how painful the whole VD had been, and how she would be glad to skip ever experiencing another VD for the rest of her life.

Well, BFFs mom found the note, and read it. Being a paranoid mom of a teen girl, she didn't know that VD was in this case an abbreviation for Valentine's Day. Her concerned maternal mind thought VD stood for Venereal Disease. (.......)

Can someone please explain to me what exactly is the deal with misery and company? I get that complaining is infectious and addictive, but what really surprises me is when misery is an expectation~ when people actually seem to resent others who don't appear to be as unhappy as they should be.

I first noticed this crazy concept a few years ago when my family had been going through some fairly public hard times. Aside from the rocky patch we were in, my offspring and I had been working on our Explore All 50 States Dream for a couple of years.

At one point, we had put together this Pacific Northwest Adventure~ it would take us through Big Foot territory to the Redwoods, to see friends on the Northern California coast, up the entire coast of Oregon, along the Lewis and Clark route, and to visit friends, family and cheesy tourist traps in Seattle and Portland.

We didn't have a lot of time or a huge budget, but with some crazy planning skills and flexibility, we had an amazing 9 day adventure with pouring rain, washed out roads, cheese and ice cream galore and sites that were both historical and hysterical. We slept in tents, in yurts and on couches, and ate out of an ice chest. We saw people we rarely get to, laughed until our bellies ached, got a break from our troubles, continued working toward a big dream, and all around had a wonderful time.

Then, we got home and I posted the pictures on Facebook. Oops.

But, that's what most people do when they have happy things to share, right? Thankfully, most people were happy to see us smiling and having fun, but there were a few (there always are) who felt we should not be enjoying ourselves quite so much. At least not publicly under the circumstances. (.........)